


heartlines on your hand

by guycecil



Series: if you stay, i'll be forgiven [3]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Joui War, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 02:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5189489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guycecil/pseuds/guycecil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katsura changes. Or, "Character Development Can Be Found In The Worst People."</p>
            </blockquote>





	heartlines on your hand

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so gay. I also keep fucking up the timeline of what happens when in canon... oh well. Title from "Heartlines" by Florence + The Machine.

_I don’t know exactly what a prayer is._  
 _I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down_  
 _into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,_  
 _how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,_  
 _which is what I have been doing all day._  
 _Tell me, what else should I have done?_  
\-- “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver

* * *

 

**001.**

Katsura feels disgusting. He has dirt embedded under his nails, caked in his hair, buried behind his ears. They haven’t seen a stream in days, let alone a town, a house, or even just a lone bathtub. They’re lucky it’s summer, that they can strip down to almost nothing to sleep -- their clothes are even dirtier than they are. Dried blood scrapes off skin much easier than clothes.

He and Sakamoto are sent on a scouting mission in the early days after he joins them. They’re the only ones out of their company that can go. Takasugi is too busy taking hold of the Kiheitai, newly formed and not all entirely excited about their young leader, and Gintoki is gaining popularity, with his white hair and white clothes. No one says the name aloud -- at least, not where he can hear, not out loud, not _yet_ , but Katsura can hear them whisper _Shiroyasha_ , sometimes, and he doesn’t have to ask to know who they mean.

“Lucky,” Gintoki grumbles when Katsura informs them all of the mission. “What I’d give to get away from these assholes for a couple days.”

“Aww, Kintoki, you’re just thinking about how much you’ll miss us,” Sakamoto says, smiling. He leans in to grab Gintoki’s arm, but Gintoki turns too quickly for him, and he stumbles and almost falls. He comes up laughing.

“This is hardly a pleasure trip, Gintoki,” Katsura says, ignoring them. They’re like children -- if you ignore the bad behavior, they won’t get the recognition they think they deserve for it, and they’ll stop. “We have a serious mission.”

“A serious mission for serious people doing serious things,” Sakamoto agrees, grin wide across his face.

“The only thing you’re serious about is drinking,” Gintoki mutters.

Sakamoto laughs. “And women, Kintoki!”

“That’s not my fucking name, you shit, I’ll kill you!”

\---

They leave, as Sakamoto whines, at the asscrack of dawn -- although the phrase isn’t quite accurate. It can hardly be called anything related to “dawn” when the sun won’t be showing itself for hours, but Katsura lets it pass.

Takasugi is on guard and can’t properly send them off, and Gintoki hasn’t bothered with proper even once in his life. He half-rouses from his sleep when Katsura gets ready to leave the tent, slurs, “Zuraaa…”

Katsura turns, frowns down at him. “Go back to sleep.”

He reaches out a hand, fingers catching in Katsura’s pants. “Be careful,” he mumbles.

Katsura sighs. “You needn’t worry.”

“Gimme a kiss goodbye,” Gintoki says, a sleepy smile crossing his face.

“Go back to sleep, Gintoki,” Katsura says, and sweeps out of the tent.

“You’re sleeping with Kintoki!” Sakamoto crows as soon as he steps outside. Katsura winces.

“Keep your voice down,” he murmurs. “You’ll wake the others. And no, I am not.”

“Aw, come on!” Sakamoto jogs a couple steps to catch up with him, lands an elbow on his shoulder. He’s too tall, Katsura has decided. He needs a couple centimeters chopped off. Takasugi will agree, he’s sure, and Gintoki is always open to swing his sword at something. “Then what was all that kiss goodbye stuff?”

“That,” Katsura says, turning a corner, “was Gintoki being Gintoki.”

Sakamoto makes a noise like a kicked dog. “Boring,” he complains. “Where’s the wartime romance?”

“I don’t have time for such things,” Katsura says. “And neither does Gintoki.”

“So if there wasn’t a war…”

Katsura doesn’t even bother to give that an answer.

\---

“Whoa!” Sakamoto leans out over the cliff, nearly falls. “I didn’t know we were so close to the ocean!”

Katsura could cry, but he distracts himself by grabbing the back of Sakamoto’s clothes and dragging him back. “Nor did I,” he murmurs. “We must have veered off course. We should be much farther inland.”

“Look how wide it goes!” Sakamoto leans forward again, eyes going wide. “It’s like it never ends!”

“You’re going to fall,” Katsura scolds him. “We should return to the group. If they keep heading in the direction they have plotted, they’ll end up even farther off course.”

“Aww, not already, you mean?” Sakamoto looks crestfallen. “But look at it all! Don’t you wanna explore it?” He sweeps a hand wide over the landscape. Katsura tries not to think about how badly he wants that water on his body right now.

“No,” he says firmly. “We’ve been gone several days already, we need to head them off before they end up running into some enemy army.”

“Just an hour,” Sakamoto pleads. He drops to his knees like a child, curls his hands together in prayer. “Please? What’s an hour gonna do? Nothin’!”

“Please be serious,” Katsura snaps. He turns away, crosses his arms over his chest. “We don’t have time to be goofing off!”

“We’re not goofing off, and I am serious!” Sakamoto jumps to his feet with an ease Katsura envies, then bounces back in front of him. “Serious about _relaxing_ , for like _two seconds!_ ”

Katsura lets out a hissing breath between his teeth. “That hardly sounds serious to me. We’re at war. We don’t get time to relax.”

“Well, we should,” Sakamoto says, planting his hands on his hips. “We’re out here risking our lives! Don’t we deserve just a tiiiny little break every now and then?”

Katsura takes a fraction of a second too long to come up with a response -- by the time he’s opened his mouth, Sakamoto has already decided that means “yes”, and has taken off back down the slope so he can pick his way down to the water. He knows he should call after him, demand that he come back so they can return to the group, but the water is tempting, and Sakamoto’s joy is contagious, and he sighs and makes his way down as well.

\---

“I told you,” Sakamoto singsongs half an hour later, floating on his back completely naked. He has his eyes closed, face turned into the sun. Katsura looks away and continues scrubbing at his skin.

“Only for a few minutes,” he says. He dunks his head underwater, and when he comes back up Sakamoto is saying something, but he ignores it. He’ll talk himself to sleep if Katsura lets him.

“...not as salty,” Sakamoto is saying when he tunes back in. “And they go on forever, the whole planet is water except for one tiny island, like if Japan was the only land on all of Earth, except it’s just this little circle because it’s gotten worn down by the water for so long since it’s really just a rock and not actual land. And they think one day it’ll just disappear completely and all that’ll be left is water on this whole planet, and everyone will evolve to become fish people and--”

“Or they’ll leave their planet and come to Earth, continuing a chain of conquests throughout the galaxy,” Katsura says. He digs his fingernails into his scalp, desperate to dislodge the dirt stuck there.

There’s a little splash behind him, but he doesn’t turn around. “I guess they could do that,” Sakamoto says. “But probably not. Most people would rather stay on their own planet.”

“They’re not people,” Katsura says.

“Sure they are!” Sakamoto splashes again. “They’re just weird people. Who might become fish one day.”

“You’ll forgive me if I have a hard time seeing the creatures that wish to take over our planet as people.” He dunks under the water one more time.

Sakamoto is laughing when he surfaces. “You’re too uptight, Zura,” he says. “Sure, these guys might be bad guys, but that doesn’t mean everyone out there is bad, right?” Katsura looks back over his shoulder, and Sakamoto raises a hand toward the sky. The gesture loses a little significance, since it’s the middle of the day and the sky is filled with clouds, threatening rain, but Katsura understands the meaning.

“Maybe they’re scared of how big it is,” Sakamoto muses. “Or maybe they just don’t think they can really see it all, so they gave up. Why else would you try to explore it, if you didn’t wanna see all of it?”

“I couldn’t say,” Katsura says. Finally the last of the dirt comes out from underneath his fingernails, and he feels clean again. He steps onto the sand and grabs his clothes so he can dunk them in the water a few times. The sand clings to his feet, and he’s lost the tie he normally uses to keep his hair up, which means he’ll have to sacrifice a few centimeters off the end of one sleeve for the trip back.

“One day,” Sakamoto sighs.

* * *

“You laugh like that idiot,” Gintoki mumbles into a bartop ten years later. “I never realized until I ran into him again, which is _stupid_ , because you’d think I’d remember something that fucking loud, but apparently not.”

“Hmm,” Katsura agrees. He pours Gintoki another drink, even though he’s well aware Gintoki doesn’t need anymore. “You talk too much,” he says.

“So do you!” Gintoki protests. He turns his head and frowns around his glass. “Probably picked that up from him, too.”

“At least mine is acquired,” Katsura says. “You’ve always been like this.”

“Asshole,” Gintoki groans. He sits up slowly, clumsily, and sips at his sake. After half a moment of silence, he says, “Guess it’s better than sulking.”

Katsura tenses, tries to hide it. “Let’s not talk about him.”

“Wha?” Gintoki looks over, squinting. “Not him, asshole, _you_.”

“What?” Katsura just stares.

“You used to… you know.” Gintoki waves a hand vaguely. The words come out of his mouth slowly, like he has to work to make them make sense. “You used to just kinda stare at shit. Like. After battles and shit. Not like, saying anything, just staring. And me and asshole used to pick fights but that wasn’t really saying anything either, but then… you know. Sakamoto used to say shit.” He shrugs. “And now you never shut up.”

“And you’re the one rambling now,” Katsura says.

Gintoki snorts, lets his face fall back to the bartop. “Asshole,” he says again. “What are we doing?”

Katsura sighs, stands up. “Drinks with an old friend,” he says.

“‘S that all I am to you?” Gintoki whines, as Katsura throws one of his arms over his shoulders, shifts his weight to lift the yorozuya to his feet.

“There’s no such thing as _more than friends_ , Gintoki,” Katsura tells him.

“All right, friend _and_ something else.” Gintoki takes a stumbling step, nearly falls, and Katsura hisses as he tries to catch him.

He resets his footing and starts off. “I can’t remember the last time you admitted we were friends.”

* * *

**002.**

Three days before the Tendoushuu kidnap them in the midst of battle, Takasugi makes Gintoki fight him. Afterwards, they both collapse to the ground, panting. It’s win number 186 for Gintoki.

“Fuck you,” he groans from the ground. Katsura would complain at him about dirty white clothes, but they’re all dirty, and there’s no point.

“Fuck _you_ ,” Takasugi spits back. He sits up, drags fingers through his hair to pull it back into place.

“You’re both very eloquent and we are all amazed,” Katsura says, leaning against a tree a safe distance away. “But we do have things to do.”

“Oh, of course!” Gintoki exclaims. “How could I forget! I have to go parade myself around in front of the new recruits so they can be inspired enough to leap into battle.” He swings himself to his feet, salutes them like the Amanto soldiers do, and stomps off.

“Fuck your bad fucking mood!” Takasugi yells after him. Gintoki pulls his finger from his nose and flicks something back towards them. It doesn’t land within even ten feet of them, but Takasugi still howls.

Afterwards, when Gintoki has disappeared around the corner of the nearest tent, Takasugi falls back into the dirt. “Fuck him,” he declares. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“Direct that anger at the Amanto,” Katsura says. He shifts away from the tree and steps forward. “You’re no good to anyone if you’re just angry at us.”

“I’ll be angry at anyone who deserves it,” Takasugi snaps. “And a few people besides that, too.” He doesn’t look up when he takes Katsura’s extended hand, just reaches up and wraps his fingers around his wrist, and they both pull him to his feet.

“Just don’t take your anger out here,” Katsura murmurs. His fingers linger over Takasugi’s for a moment, and then he turns away. Takasugi doesn’t answer.

\---

Around the fire that night, Sakamoto elbows Gintoki until he breaks out of his mood. Katsura watches Takasugi watch them, barely touching his food. When Takasugi abandons the fire, leaving his bowl behind, and neither Sakamoto nor Gintoki notices, Katsura follows.

He finds him in their tent, pulling his shirt off and tossing it into the pile of dirty clothes that has slowly built over the day as soldiers go in and out. There are scars on his back that Katsura doesn’t remember from their childhood.

“You can’t run from your problems,” Katsura says, in his best imitation of sensei’s voice. It’s meant to be a joke -- Takasugi doesn’t laugh.

“I’m not running,” he says. “They are.”

“I don’t see them going anywhere,” Katsura says.

“Then you aren’t looking,” Takasugi tells him. He drops onto the ground and pulls on a slightly cleaner shirt, shoves back a blanket just enough to slide his feet under the edge. Katsura doesn’t know where his coat has gone. “I’ve accepted it,” he goes on. “This is what it’s like. You just have to fucking deal with it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then you’re not listening, either!” Takasugi snarls. “One day you’ll all realize -- you can’t ignore it, and you can’t talk over it, and you sure as hell can’t starve it, either. It will always get louder.”

“You’re not making sense,” Katsura murmurs.

“Just… shut up.” Takasugi drops his head onto his knees.

Katsura moves slowly to sit next to him. He wants to reach out, but he doesn’t. The only image in his head when he goes to do it is sensei with a hand on Takasugi’s head and a hand on Gintoki’s and Katsura in the middle, so he stops himself.

“Let me help,” Katsura says.

“Fuck off,” Takasugi says.

\---

They take out Takasugi’s eye. Katsura loses him and Gintoki in the ensuing fray, and until Sakamoto and a small group of the other soldiers descend upon them, Katsura honestly thinks they are all going to die there, and a part of him thinks it’s worth it -- if there’s ever been a time, it’s now, with sensei’s body nearby.

That night, he shakes, and Gintoki holds him, and hours later he watches him stumble out of Takasugi’s tent, face red with frustration or embarrassment. Takasugi is well enough to walk again by the next morning, and he and Katsura walk at the head of their group.

He doesn’t know what to say to him. They are silent. Somewhere behind them, Gintoki walks by himself. Katsura doesn’t know where Sakamoto is. He doesn’t know what point the Tendoushuu were trying to make. He doesn’t know why the other rebels have accepted them back so easily, even though he feels like an outsider. He doesn’t know a lot of things right now.

Takasugi’s face is wrapped tight. He says nothing. He walks just far enough away that Katsura can’t feel the warmth come off his body. He wants to reach out and grab the end of his sleeve, like when they were children and he was always just out of reach. Someone has scrubbed the blood out of his collar, but Katsura doesn’t know. He spent the night an arm’s length away from Sakamoto with no one between them for warmth.

“He’ll leave now,” Takasugi says finally. Katsura doesn’t know who he’s talking about, and he doesn’t ask. He wants to grab him and hold him but he can’t.

“Then you have to say,” Katsura says.

* * *

Katsura lowers Gintoki onto his futon, then pulls back in preparation to leave, but Gintoki grabs his arm. He grunts in surprise when Gintoki pulls him down to the futon, sprawled across Gintoki himself.

“Let me go, you curly idiot,” Katsura grumbles.

“No,” Gintoki whines, and wraps his arms around Katsura’s body. “Stay.”

Katsura sighs against Gintoki’s shoulder. “That’s not a good idea.”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Gintoki traces fingers up Katsura’s wrist in an almost absent-minded way, slipping under the sleeve of his haori.

“Not--” Katsura starts, and then Gintoki slides his fingers through his hair and lifts his head and brings their mouths together.

It’s soft and smooth in ways Katsura forgot their kisses could be and didn’t realize he missed. He pulls back slowly, mumbles. “Just for a little. Not the whole night.”

Gintoki laughs his victory and flips them quickly, pressing his lips to the side of Katsura’s neck once he’s on top. Katsura can smell the alcohol on him, taste it on his lips, but Gintoki’s movements are still those of a man with years of experience in his work.

Fingers curl through Katsura’s hair, gently guiding it out of the way in a thoughtful gesture Katsura wouldn’t expect from Gintoki if he didn’t have distinct memories that would make Gintoki want his hair out of the way.

“You should cut it,” Gintoki says for the thousandth time.

“You should stop playing with it if you want it gone so bad,” Katsura says back. Gintoki inhales next to his ear, his fingers slide through the feathery ends.

“Maybe you wouldn’t have dealt with all that shit with Takasugi if you didn’t stand out so bad.” Gintoki moves back to Katsura’s throat.

“I really don’t think it’s fair to blame that on my hair,” Katsura tells him.

Gintoki groans. “I didn’t really want to have a whole conversation about it, just…” He sputters a little, seeming to have used up his quota for long sentences. “Whatever. Don’t change if it’s such a big deal.”

“Didn’t you once say you would have to kill me if I ever did?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

* * *

** 003. **

It’s a moment of weakness, of terror. He holds the tantou in his hands but they shake so hard he probably wouldn’t be able to do the job he needs to do even if he tried. Gintoki’s voice sounds in his head, bounces against the walls like an echo in the emptiness Gintoki always tells him his skull must be. There is nothing beautiful about this. He drops the blade.

The morning dawns. He and Gintoki are separated from the rest of the group in the day’s battle, and they come back walking closer than they left. Takasugi glares at them, but Katsura sees no jealousy there, only anger, probably thinking they’re not fighting hard enough. Katsura can’t bring himself to say anything.

Gintoki leaves to parade around -- his continued life is still enough to motivate even the weakest of the soldiers. Katsura is fairly sure that it’s more out of habit than anything else, now. He watches him go and it leaves an ache in his ribs that he doesn’t understand. Takasugi laughs at him.

“You’re pathetic,” he sneers.

“No more than anyone else who’s still here,” Katsura says. He aches, but some part of him feels real again. He gets to his feet, because there are clothes to be washed, and injuries to be tallied, and a course to plot for the morning.

The morning’s course ends up not mattering -- Gintoki is gone, and the ground has disappeared completely, and it’s taken the sun, the sky, the moon, and all of creation with it. He stumbles around the camp in disbelief for a while, but no one has seen him. His few belongings (his extra clothes, sensei’s sword, sensei’s notebook) are gone. There aren’t even footprints leading out of camp.

Takasugi laughs at him again. “You should have seen it coming.”

“I should have seen a lot of things coming,” Katsura says. He wants to be angry with Takasugi for saying it, but he just feels tired. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to die so badly.

\---

He’s not sure how it happens, but their tiny force falls apart. Takasugi takes the Kiheitai and leaves, and their forces are so small that Katsura doesn’t bother to see if he can find somewhere for them to regroup before the next battle. He takes them to the nearest town, sets them up in the homes of the courteous people there, and then he leaves.

He wanders. It’s the first time he’s been alone in… a long time. He doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t do much of anything else. For days, he walks, and he dreams that Sakamoto lands a spaceship in the open fields to take him away. He wakes up shaking, and there is no one to sleepily smooth away the tremors with fingers in his hair and down his arms and sides. He even misses the bickering, and the pointless sparring born of frustration with each other, and the laughter at whoever loses.

There’s an old woman in one of the towns he passes through, who sets him up with a bowl of rice and a blanket for the night. It’s not much, but he wouldn’t ask for more -- he hasn’t had even this much in a long time.

The town has been stripped by war. The Amanto’s guns have taken their toll here. Katsura finds he can barely look.

“There used to be a little school over there,” the old woman says. “The Amanto came through here a few weeks ago, but most of the children had already left, anyway. Most of them headed for Edo. There’s not much use in learning bushido anymore.” She sighs. “It’s hard to look at a space where something used to be.”

Katsura doesn’t cry. But he wants to.

\---

He makes for Edo, because it makes the most sense. If there’s anywhere to keep his finger on the pulse of the country, it’s there, at its very heart.

It’s a city of change, sprawling between small, traditionally built buildings, and towering skyscrapers. They terrify Katsura at first -- for days, he doesn’t even have words for them. He’s never seen anything so tall.

He ends up in Kabuki-chou because it’s where all the samurai end up, apparently. There’s no work for them elsewhere, and it burns him at his center. He sees more samurai living on the streets than he saw in their last battle against the Amanto.

There’s only half a police force in working order, but he keeps his head down nevertheless. They know his name, apparently, if not his face, so he gives an alias at the little hostel he sets himself up in. It’s strange, to walk the streets and feel like he has to hide. He used to walk into new towns with his head high, three pairs of shoulders by his side, and people used to welcome them openly. Now he ducks around corners and tugs his hat lower on his head when people pass too close.

Late one night, in a bar where he can easily hide and pick up on the latest news, a group of older samurai stumbles in, already laughing and well saturated with alcohol. “They say he died,” one of them says dramatically, and the others laugh, like the idea is preposterous.

“More like he got tired of fighting a losing battle,” another one says, and the others chuckle agreement.

“Doubt the Amanto could’ve killed him even if they had him pinned down with a gun in his face anyway,” agrees a third. “They used to tell this story, back when I ran with the Joui--”

The others suddenly hush him, so loudly that it attracts the attention of the bar’s patrons more than it quiets the man who was speaking. When everyone uneasily goes back to their drinks, the man continues, quieter, shakier, “They used to say he could fight entire battles on his own. I forget how the actual story goes.”

“The story,” says the last of their company, “is that he once took down a hundred Amanto on his own. And it was true, but he didn’t do it alone. He had Takasugi’s Kiheitai keeping any late arrivals off his back, and Sakamoto leading the troops in the main fight, and it was Katsura’s strategy that got him in and out in the first place. No man fights alone, ever. Not even Shiroyasha.”

They all fall silent. Katsura feels very still.

* * *

There is sunlight and yelling when Katsura wakes up. Something falls, crashes, Shinpachi howls, and Gintoki groans and tries to tug Katsura closer.

“Gin-chan!” Kagura crows through the door. Something else falls, though it may just be a person this time. “Shinpachi’s breaking things!”

Gintoki huffs into Katsura’s hair. “Figure it out yourselves!”

“Gin-san!”

“Gin-chan!”

Gintoki groans again. “Your turn.”

“They’re not my kids.”

“They’re not mine either,” Gintoki grunts, but he gets up anyway, rolls away and stumbles to the door, tugging his pants back into place. Katsura figures he should get up as well, but the space where Gintoki was is warm, and he rolls into it and somehow falls asleep again.

Maybe minutes, maybe hours, maybe days later, he wakes at the sound of another howl. “Gin-chan’s hiding a girl in here!” Kagura shrieks, and a moment later he has the blankets flung off of him. She makes a little sound of disappointment. “Oh, it’s only Zura.”

“It’s not--”

“Oi, get out of there!” Gintoki yells. He’s mostly dressed from what Katsura can see between the doors, which suggests that Katsura’s been asleep longer than he realized. “If you bother wigs when they’re supposed to be getting their sleep, they’ll sneak up on you at night and steal all your sukonbu.” The slight redness to his face and the _are you kidding me_ look on Shinpachi’s give away all that Katsura needs to know.

“I’m not stupid, Gin-chan.” Kagura sticks her tongue out. “Zura knows I’ll share with him. He doesn’t have to steal.”

“Leader is right,” Katsura agrees. Gintoki steps into the room, stares down at him upside down. They frown at each other for a moment, and then Gintoki sighs and turns away.

“Gin-chan is mad because you didn’t eat breakfast with us,” Kagura whispers as Gintoki leaves. She flops onto Katsura’s chest and starts playing with his hair.

“Is he now?” Katsura murmurs. Her weight is warm, familiar. It feels like it’s been years longer than it has been.

“Mmhm.” Kagura kicks her feet up. “He won’t say anything, but I thought you should know.”

“He’s always been one to sulk,” Katsura agrees. “Thank you for the warning.”

Kagura nods solemnly, but she doesn’t have a chance to say anything else, because Shinpachi walks in then, complaining about needing to clean the room and how he can’t do that if there’s still a futon spread out across the center. Katsura moves to get up, but Kagura refuses to move from his stomach, and she and Shinpachi start yelling at each other, and Gintoki steps inside to yell at them both at the same time that Shinpachi flings out an arm, and somehow it ends up with Gintoki sprawled across the futon as well.

“All right,” he says, rolling over and dropping his head onto Katsura’s stomach next to Kagura’s arms. “I’m not moving. Clearly that’s a bad idea today, so I’m just gonna sit right here.”

“Gin-san!” Shinpachi whines. “I need to clean!”

Kagura rolls her eyes and gives her feet a little kick. “Worry about it later, come lie down!”

“But--”

“You might as well,” Katsura says. He hadn’t put up much of a fight in the first place, but there’s certainly no point in pushing it now -- Gintoki’s rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, and Kagura’s got her head resting fully on Katsura’s stomach.

Shinpachi doesn’t lay down, but he does flop into a sitting position next to them with a frustrated little huff. It’s a very Gintoki thing to do, but Katsura doesn’t think he’ll mention it this time. “I’m surprised you’re not used to this sort of thing yet,” he observes instead.

Shinpachi crosses his arms. “It’s silly,” he mumbles, but his face is a little red.

Katsura smiles despite himself, and reaches out, catches the edge of Shinpachi’s sleeve, and drags him down to lie next to Gintoki, who’s already half-asleep. Shinpachi protests for maybe a second before he gives up and just lies there, sighing up at the ceiling.

Katsura runs a hand through Kagura’s hair. Finally the Yorozuya apartment stills -- the room is warm, the sunlight streams in slowly. He can hear the noise of Kabuki-chou outside, and he certainly has things to do, but suddenly he’s feeling a weight again, holding him here. It’s something more than the three heads using him for a pillow.


End file.
